Paul Kerins is Head of IT at the Maitland Group who are a recent ‘win’ for Lexis Nexis InterAction. Maitland are a law firm with trust, accounting and corporate admin groups and have eleven offices around the world.
Paul Kerins started his career with the group working on IT systems in1998 with a past history as IT and project manager.
Paul tells us why they chose Lexis Nexis InterAction. “We were looking for something the entire group could use and because we were multi site, it had to be web based. We wanted it to integrate with Outlook and Exchange so started off looking at a variety of systems.” Here John Finch, Project Manager at Maitland joins the interview to fill us in on the technical details. “I had specific responsibility on the IT side.” Said John. “I managed the process; systems we looked at and internal documentation. We went the traditional route of looking at a shortlist of products and in fact went a long way down the line with Sage MME and SalesLogix.” John says they also looked hard at Microsoft CRM but felt the online offering was outstripped by other products.
John says between the two main choices, Sales Logix and Interface he felt the SalesLogix was a stronger product, but the stumbling block was lack of web functionality. They then reviewed Sage MME and were going to choose it but on a pilot were trying to map entities with contacts and found it was being pushed out of it’s comfort zone.
John tells us about past CRM efforts at the firm. “We’ve attempted CRM before on an office by office basis but never tried to get something running at group level. We wanted a system to cover the eleven offices we have and from the IT perspective, wanted to consolidate our databases. He concedes that cultural issues may arise but is pragmatic. “You always have problems with systems of this type. We have a certain amount of buy in from people who’ve already used CRM systems. Marketing are heading up the roll out and have a training programme in place that should address this and will bring big dividends.” Paul nods in agreement. “The issues were mainly geographic and we needed to bring information together. As John has said Lexis Nexis InterAction met our requirements.”
As to other technology within the firm, Paul confirms that they have KM, an intranet and online libraries across their four operating divisions which are: legal, trust and corporate administration and accounting. They also have specialist software for the groups. Products used internally include Microsoft, GENI, Jobstream and Immediacy which is web content management software . “We go for best of breed.” Says Paul.
IT support runs out of the Isle of Man with IT staff in London, Luxembourg and South Africa. Paul says there is a problem finding vendors because of the firms sheer geographic dispersal, so they tend to have different vendors in different locations and standardise what they do. “For instance choosing one hardware supplier like Dell.” Says Paul. Language problems can also be a problem, so he sticks to English language software but concedes: “It can throw up issues for us.”
Picking his brains, I ask about trends he is seeing. “The need for ever more connectivity, more bandwidth and email becoming all consuming.” He says before adding. “The sheer number of servers needed for technology is incredible. It used to be one server, now its twenty or thirty.” He confirms, like most, that he is reviewing virtualisation software to save on office space.
Paul says Maitland stick with dedicated suppliers and says of the vendors they deal with, Lexis Nexis InterAction get the thumbs up. “They were good to deal with.” I ask about vendors generally. “We do get sales calls every day but we just handle it as part of the business.”
The plan with InterAction is a big roll which will then integrate into core systems like Jobstream, a specialist trust billing and accounting system. “We are pushing integrated systems.” Paul takes a minute to tell us about Jobstream. “It’s in the top two software suppliers offshore and is a niche company in the Isle of Man. There are very few bits of software that does what it does. It has everything you need for the trust business: client accounting, portfolio management, time recording, billing and fund administration.”
In the IT department Maitland have ten staff. “We are about right in size.” Says Paul. “Although we’re having to recruit more IT staff. There are some things you just can’t do remotely but we try and use remote relationships in each jurisdiction as much as we can.” He adds. “We travel a bit between offices.”
Finishing off, Pauls says the IT budget is four percent of turnover “ It will vary depending on what we are doing. It can be lower if no software purchases are made.”
This first appeared in http://www.citytechmag.com/
Paul Kerins started his career with the group working on IT systems in1998 with a past history as IT and project manager.
Paul tells us why they chose Lexis Nexis InterAction. “We were looking for something the entire group could use and because we were multi site, it had to be web based. We wanted it to integrate with Outlook and Exchange so started off looking at a variety of systems.” Here John Finch, Project Manager at Maitland joins the interview to fill us in on the technical details. “I had specific responsibility on the IT side.” Said John. “I managed the process; systems we looked at and internal documentation. We went the traditional route of looking at a shortlist of products and in fact went a long way down the line with Sage MME and SalesLogix.” John says they also looked hard at Microsoft CRM but felt the online offering was outstripped by other products.
John says between the two main choices, Sales Logix and Interface he felt the SalesLogix was a stronger product, but the stumbling block was lack of web functionality. They then reviewed Sage MME and were going to choose it but on a pilot were trying to map entities with contacts and found it was being pushed out of it’s comfort zone.
John tells us about past CRM efforts at the firm. “We’ve attempted CRM before on an office by office basis but never tried to get something running at group level. We wanted a system to cover the eleven offices we have and from the IT perspective, wanted to consolidate our databases. He concedes that cultural issues may arise but is pragmatic. “You always have problems with systems of this type. We have a certain amount of buy in from people who’ve already used CRM systems. Marketing are heading up the roll out and have a training programme in place that should address this and will bring big dividends.” Paul nods in agreement. “The issues were mainly geographic and we needed to bring information together. As John has said Lexis Nexis InterAction met our requirements.”
As to other technology within the firm, Paul confirms that they have KM, an intranet and online libraries across their four operating divisions which are: legal, trust and corporate administration and accounting. They also have specialist software for the groups. Products used internally include Microsoft, GENI, Jobstream and Immediacy which is web content management software . “We go for best of breed.” Says Paul.
IT support runs out of the Isle of Man with IT staff in London, Luxembourg and South Africa. Paul says there is a problem finding vendors because of the firms sheer geographic dispersal, so they tend to have different vendors in different locations and standardise what they do. “For instance choosing one hardware supplier like Dell.” Says Paul. Language problems can also be a problem, so he sticks to English language software but concedes: “It can throw up issues for us.”
Picking his brains, I ask about trends he is seeing. “The need for ever more connectivity, more bandwidth and email becoming all consuming.” He says before adding. “The sheer number of servers needed for technology is incredible. It used to be one server, now its twenty or thirty.” He confirms, like most, that he is reviewing virtualisation software to save on office space.
Paul says Maitland stick with dedicated suppliers and says of the vendors they deal with, Lexis Nexis InterAction get the thumbs up. “They were good to deal with.” I ask about vendors generally. “We do get sales calls every day but we just handle it as part of the business.”
The plan with InterAction is a big roll which will then integrate into core systems like Jobstream, a specialist trust billing and accounting system. “We are pushing integrated systems.” Paul takes a minute to tell us about Jobstream. “It’s in the top two software suppliers offshore and is a niche company in the Isle of Man. There are very few bits of software that does what it does. It has everything you need for the trust business: client accounting, portfolio management, time recording, billing and fund administration.”
In the IT department Maitland have ten staff. “We are about right in size.” Says Paul. “Although we’re having to recruit more IT staff. There are some things you just can’t do remotely but we try and use remote relationships in each jurisdiction as much as we can.” He adds. “We travel a bit between offices.”
Finishing off, Pauls says the IT budget is four percent of turnover “ It will vary depending on what we are doing. It can be lower if no software purchases are made.”
This first appeared in http://www.citytechmag.com/
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